THIS. Moments like this are the beat to my heart. The reason I love this gift so so very much. Capturing legacies to freeze them in time for the future simply keep me going.
I don’t know how long I’ve known Jason and Tiffany, can’t really even remember how we met other than somehow through mutual friends a long time ago.
They’ve been married for 12 years this coming Fall, and for as long as I’ve known them being parents has always been their heart’s deepest burning desire. They’d found each other, and they were ready to have babies!
But God. He had a better plan. A more painful and constantly heartbreaking plan, but nonetheless a more beautiful plan than they’d ever have dreamed to dream. A plan that inevitably made them so much stronger together than most.
Jeremiah 29:11 is framed in their living room. An ever present reminder than He hadn’t forgotten them. They wouldn’t have to live in this dark place forever. “For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you, not harm you, to give you hope and a future…”
Many have walked the walk with them over the years. We’ve had the discussions with our friends who would get pregnant seemingly so easily while they were still waiting. I’ve seen the pain and heard the cries from both sides of the fence…tears of guilt from some because they could when their precious friends could not, tears of sorrow and grief from the other wondering “Why not me?”. Tears and sometimes anger myself FOR their pain.
But God…
A year ago, the first of March, I walked into their home to meet and photograph this tiny 6 week old baby boy whom God had placed under their loving care through Foster Care. It wasn’t a certainty he’d get to be theirs, but as we’d all discover yesterday God knew this baby was always meant to be theirs.
You see my faith in God’s divine plan and timing tells me this…that before they were husband and wife, before they even knew the other existed, God had it planned all along that one day THEY would be the ones to love this child. None of us just knew it quite yet.
Today He reminded even me that He hasn’t forgotten me in my struggle. No. He concreted what He’s been speaking to me the last few months, YEARS even. What He’d been rounding out the hole readying the concrete for…so it could be poured today.
His will IS PERFECT. His timing is impeccable. His love immeasurable. He is faithful, always!
Whatever you’re waiting on, whatever you’re beating back doubts and thoughts of, with defeat encircling your every thought, know this…He sees you! He loves you! And He’s making a way in the wilderness to give you “exceedingly abundantly” more than you know to even ask for!
He saw Jason and Tiffany all along, and in a crowded Judge’s Chambers filled with family and friends who’ve walked alongside them all the way I captured THE moment they FINALLY became PARENTS! The very moment that legally they became a FAMILY!
Now officially a mother and a father to a precious little boy. A little boy who stole their hearts over a year ago, and who this day joined the Brock clan as not only a son, but the first grandson too!
The kisses and hugs from his new grandparents, aunt, and loving friends were plentiful as he laughed and giggled his enormously infectious smile. If you’re around him at all, and he doesn’t make you laugh then you must be defective!
In the midst of usually dreaded circumstances which bring people to a courthouse, there was a bright, giggly, baby chuckle filled, JOYOUS moment where a family was solidified…after 11 years of waiting, and 495 days with him it all perfectly became concrete.
11 Years of waiting in their own desert. Years of wandering, tears, doubts, and questions….all of it ceased today with one glorious word…
I teared up behind the camera, and then sobbed back in my car. My dream for my precious friends had finally come true, and I was reminded once again that HE.IS.GOOD ya’ll! So SO immeasurably good!
Foster Care and Adoption are simply perfect representations of God’s love for us! We’ve been adopted into His family forever once we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior…given forever love even before He knit us together, and all we have to do to claim it is say “YES, LORD!”.
I’ve had my own burning desire to foster and adopt for as long as I can remember, and stories like my sweet friends’ only serve to drive the nail in deeper that He never forgets us nor leaves us, there is absolutely a purpose, a GLORIOUS purpose, to our pain. No matter how impatiently patient we may get as we walk out the waiting.
Sometimes He leaves us in the desert just long enough for us to see the other way He wants us to go. Just long enough for us to realize His way really is the only way…
Isaiah 48: “Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.”
Last Sunday in Memphis I visited another friend’s Church, friends who are waiting for their child via adoption, and the Preacher broke down Moses’ encounter with God in the rocks when he asked God to show Himself Moses face to face. “God did not grant Moses’ request as he asked for it… The problem we have ISN’T with God’s promises, but rather His ways of fulfilling those promises.”
I love that God said “You shall see my back, but you cannot see my face…you would perish because my glory is too great for any man to take.” so instead He places him in a rock to have a peek AFTER He’d walked by. He granted his request, but it had to be modified for Moses’ sake.
It gutted me that night that many times we can only see exactly how and why God was moving as He did until after He’s already passed by us…after the waiting ends.
Sometimes He shows us with a tiny glimpse from a small crack in a rock, and sometimes just blindly, because if we got to see it coming at us head on it’d be too much for us to take either from fear, doubt, or just being ill-equipped at that moment so we’d run the opposite way of that which He wants us to go.
Rylan is proof of that glory.
They didn’t get to see him coming into their lives, it wasn’t how they’d initially planned it, but ohhhh how mighty the glorious ripples are that he’s been making since God placed him in their care those 495 days ago.
Thank you Jason and Tiffany for being wonderful friends, sharing your hearts always, and for loving the Lord with all of your beings. I love you both, and am forever grateful for your friendship, and willingness to just go, be, and do. Rylan is one BLESSED baby boy, and I cannot wait to watch your family continue to grow!
Welcome to the Brock Family Mr. Rylan! You’ve been loved, anticipated, and prayed for so much even before you were born!
XOXO, “Aunt B”
The first time ever I saw his sweet face…6 weeks old:
This police onesie they’d been waiting for over 5 years to have a bundle to fill lay on their kitchen table…waiting for this handsome fella! 
Halloween 2014 when he moused his way to my studio for some Halloween portraits:
The Courthouse waiting game where he didn’t care about the seriousness of the place…he was just having a good time making everyone smile and laugh:
Inside the Judge’s Chambers as they were sworn in, and legally made Mom and Dad:
Part of the afterparty and Rylan welcoming commitee 😉 
Their FIRST Official portraits as a family! 
And a little Splish Splash fun with his hope to be someday soon lil sis 😉 to round out the day:
BraskaJennea Photography | Destination Wedding & Curvy Boudoir Photographer 